sub something
  {
  #takes a hashref as an argument. creates a copy of the hash, scans each of the values for any occurence of a comma and if necessary, adds a space after it. 
  #Returns a hashref to a newly constructed, thus corrected, hash.
  my $hashref = shift;
  unless(ref($hashref) eq 'HASH')
    { print "argument to \'something\' must be a hash reference"; return; }
  my %oldhash = %{$hashref};
  my %newhash;
  foreach my $key (keys(%oldhash))
    {
    my $value = $oldhash{$key};
    $value =~ s/,/, /g;
    $newhash{$key} = $value;
    }
  return \%newhash;
  }